The ACLU of Florida has criticized a
Miami Republican's proposed bill which it claims would “criminalize
the use of public restrooms by transgender people.”

Rep. Frank Artiles' Single-Sex Public
Facilities bill aims to restrict public bathroom use to the “persons
of sex for which facility is designated.”

“Requires that use of single-sex
facilities be restricted to persons of sex for which facility is
designated; prohibits knowingly & willfully entering single-sex
public facility designated for or restricted to persons of other
biological sex; provides exemptions; provides private cause of action
against violators; provides for preemption,” the bill states.

Artiles acted roughly two months after
Miami-Dade County approved an ordinance which prohibits
discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression. He
told The
Miami Herald that he responded out of concern for “public
safety.”

“It's not that the transgender or the
gender identity community is dangerous by any means,” Artiles said,
“but [the ordinance] creates a giant loophole for criminals, sexual
deviants and sexual predators to walk into a shower, a woman's locker
room under the cover of law.”

“A man such as myself can walk into
the bathroom at LA Fitness while women are taking showers, changing,
and simply walk in there. Someone can say, ‘What are you doing
there?’ Under the ordinance, I don't have to respond. It's
subjective. If I feel like a woman that day, I can be allowed to be
in that locker room. I don’'t know about you, but I find that
disturbing.”

Daniel Tilley, staff attorney for the
ACLU of Florida, called the bill “dehumanizing” to transgender
people.

“This ‘show your papers to pee’
bill denigrates both transgender and non-transgender people alike,”
Tilley said in a statement. “In addition to dehumanizing
transgender people in particular, it invites humiliation and
harassment of anyone who is not considered sufficiently feminine or
masculine in the eyes of the beholder. Will girls in soccer uniforms
be stopped at the bathroom door and asked to produce their birth
certificates?”

“This bill also puts the burden on
business owners to monitor customers' use of restrooms and ask
intrusive and humiliating questions of customers or be at risk of
liability. That's not good for business, much less for the customers
themselves, whether transgender or not. The bill would essentially
require everyone to carry their birth certificate around so that
other citizens can subject them to random interrogations in the
restroom.”

“And given the smooth implementation
of gender identity protections for public accommodations in 17 states
and more than 200 cities around the country, the bill is as
unnecessary as it is hurtful. Just as a similarly mean-spirited bill
in Arizona failed, we expect this absurd bill to fail as well,” he
added.